Cold
by JadedDana
Summary: What if the vaccine WMM gave Mulder wasn’t exactly what it seemed?


NEW: Cold   
By JadedDana (jadeddana@netscape.net)   
  
Rating: PG  
Category: V, A  
Spoilers: the movie  
Keywords: Angst, black oil  
Summary: What if the vaccine WMM gave Mulder   
wasn't exactly what it seemed?  
Feedback: please please please! Will reply!  
Disclaimer: They all belong to Carter. Every   
last one of them. So deal with it!  
  
Cold  
By JadedDana  
  
  
Cold. I'm cold.   
We left Antarctica behind several months ago,   
but I still feel the cold imbedded in my bones.   
The frostbite has healed, and it is unbearably   
hot here in D.C. No matter how hot it is, I'll   
still feel cold.   
The cold isn't the only thing I feel inside   
my bones. I tested my blood after we got back,   
hoping to find traces of the vaccine he gave me.   
I didn't find it. What I did find made me feel   
almost as cold as the ice at the end of the   
world. The virus was still there. Dormant.  
I haven't told him about it. As far as he's   
concerned, the vaccine cured me, making me safe   
forever. I won't tell him that all it did was   
force the ship to reject me, not kill the virus.   
But I can feel it in me, floating inside my   
blood, travelling throughout my body; through my   
brain, in my lungs, inside my bones. It is   
slowly becoming me. Maybe it is the cold I feel   
inside my heart.   
I know that he feels me distancing myself   
from him a bit, but I also know he thinks it's   
because we lost the X-Files, because of the   
hallway. It reminds me painfully of the cancer;   
me stepping back and him letting me because he   
doesn't know how to stop me.   
I sometimes wonder if Skinner suspects. He   
never says anything, but then he never has; he   
just stares at you with those penetrating eyes.   
I sometimes think he can see it buried inside my   
soul as I once thought he could see a tumor   
buried between my eyes and a tiny microchip   
buried in my skin.   
It terrifies me more than the chip. More   
than the cancer, too. It scares me so badly that   
I wake up at night too frightened to even cry.   
The chip I can remove; the cancer just weakens   
me. This will steal my soul.   
It silently seeps into my bones and someday,   
after it possesses every part of me, will become   
active, and I will become a hollow shell, good   
for nothing but housing an alien creature bent on   
destroying everything I have ever worked to   
preserve. It terrifies me because there is   
nothing I can do to stop it. I am simply waiting   
for it to come out of its hiding place inside my   
bones and take over my soul.  
I have thought of trying to stop it by   
killing myself. Suicide has always been   
abhorrent to me, a terrible act of desperate   
misunderstanding and blatant disregard for the   
preciousness of life. I never thought the time   
would come that I would contemplate it, not as a   
release but as an act to protect those that I   
care about. But when I think about it, that is a   
stupid excuse created by myself. It would in no   
way stop it, and its only purpose would be the   
release that I denied I wanted.   
I will continue to live, to fight it until   
the darkness covers my eyes and makes me a vessel   
for its terrible mission. I will give him   
strength, because I know the words he spoke in   
that hallway were true; he won't go on without   
me. He can, but he doesn't realize it, and I   
can't explain it to him.   
I have been spending my nights working in   
the lab, trying to understand this thing, to know   
how it feeds, how it lives, and perhaps, how to   
kill it. I WILL NOT let this thing win, if only   
because I refuse to admit defeat. My eyes have   
circles of dark bruised skin around them from   
lack of sleep; but even if I weren't spending all   
night in the lab I would never be able to sleep.   
Lying in bed thinking about it only allows me to   
feel it even more.  
I stand at the window of the lab, looking   
out on the sleeping city as I wait for the blood   
sample to settle. There are so many lights, even   
when all but a few lost souls are asleep. Maybe   
I'm not the only one who feels something alien   
inside their heart. Maybe together we can stop   
it. Maybe we can even stop it before it becomes   
too late to help. Maybe not. That's why I'm   
here. To try. I turn back to the lab, to my   
work.   
It is still inside me. I shudder as I think   
of it flowing through my blood to imbed itself in   
my brain, seeping into my thoughts. I hope I   
will be able to stop it. Hoping is all I can do.  
I'm cold.  
  



End file.
